It’s not just schools that will suffer from cuts to the WRAP program Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence also could feel the pain.

“The WRAP workers are there from the time we open till the time we close,” said Janet Murphy, executive director of the club. “It not only adds another adult, it also provides some opportunity for small-group work that maybe the kids aren’t able to do during the school day.”

The Working to Recognize Alternative Possibilities program, administered by Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, puts mental-health professionals in public schools to help students manage difficulties.

The program is widely praised, but it has been struggling for survival as grant financing dwindles and school officials cut costs to balance their own books. The program had 21 counselors in Lawrence schools during the 2001-2002 school year; it expects to have just eight starting in the fall.

Final decisions have not been made regarding where those workers will be used. But officials expect 1 1/2 positions to be split among the district’s 18 elementary schools, with a part-time position covering the alternative high school. Full-time WRAP workers will be on staff at the city’s high schools and junior highs.

“The major cuts that will happen in WRAP will happen at the elementary level,” said Doug Eicher, director of special services for the school district.

It’s those elementary WRAP workers, however, who stay after school for activities organized by the Boys and Girls Club at Kennedy, Cordley, New York, East Heights, Pinckney, Langston Hughes and Deerfield schools.

The club serves an average of 500 children per day during the school year, working on life and leadership skills, as well as playing and creativity. WRAP workers lead some of the club’s small groups and are able to counsel students beyond school hours.

“We’re not sure what the role of all those WRAP workers will be,” Eicher said. “There maybe isn’t as much they could do at the elementary level.”

Carolyn Masinton, director of operations for the club, said WRAP workers were particularly involved at Pinckney and Cordley schools.

“They’ve really been an enhancement to the program,” Masinton said. “A lot of the stuff we would do anyway, but professionals who are trained to deal with those issues are a real plus. We have a lot of college students who aren’t trained to deal with those issues.”

Club officials, however, are preparing to move forward without the WRAP workers. They don’t do it cheerfully, however.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to lose them,” Masinton said. “They’re very beneficial.”